Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off.

Whether a Blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are:

1.) Google Adsense in Blogs

Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the Ad Serving blog and serves ads that relate to the bog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served.

2.) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements)

Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale.

3.) Product Promotion

Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement.

4.) Banner Ads

While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space.

As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many. Speaking of traffic, you have to do whatever it takes to generate traffic to your site. And as mentioned, you want to find a target market to come to your site. The more targeted the traffic is, the better chance you have of visitors clicking on your ads and staying on your site long enough to make a purchase.

To many people's surprise, design and placement play a big role in what kind of success you have with Google Adsense. To start with, you want to place your ads above the fold on your home page. What this means is place the ads high enough up the page so that people do not have to scroll down to see the ads. You will have a much better chance of getting clicks.

Next, try to eliminate as much clutter on your site as possible. By having a great deal of graphics and flashing banners you are taking away the focus from your ads and content. This is not to say you should have no graphics whatsoever, but make it easy for visitors to find things on your site.

Lastly, try to blend the ads with the background of your site. This secret many people know but simply forget to do. It has been proven that you will receive more clicks on an ad if it looks like your web site as far as the font and color of links go. It will make it look much less like an ad.